


when the world is free

by Polexia_Aphrodite



Category: Agent Carter (Marvel Short Film), Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Peggy Carter, F/F, F/M, Origin Story, Peggy Carter - Freeform, Peggy Carter in the French Resistance, Slow Burn, eventual Steve/Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 01:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4767686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polexia_Aphrodite/pseuds/Polexia_Aphrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the age of twenty-one, Peggy Carter enlists in the Auxiliary Territorial Service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the world is free

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little something I'm playing with, because I so desperately want a Peggy Carter origin story. And I also wanted to write about Peggy coping with all the loss she's faced. So, here's the start of this thing, anyway.

_There'll be love and laughter_  
And peace ever after.  
Tomorrow, when the world is free 

 

**1940**

At the age of twenty-one, Peggy Carter enlists in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She allows herself to become terribly proud – preening over her uniform, taking an insufferable amount of satisfaction in her tidy desk at the army’s London headquarters and her assignment as the clerk to the highest ranking officer on her floor. Even though there’s a war on, her disordered life suddenly feels as neat and tidy as the row of polished brass buttons at the front of her jacket.

She works through a long summer, teaching herself Morse code and taking every course offered her. She learns telegraphy and the operation of radios and telephone switchboards. With her sisters in uniform, she watches the night sky for Nazi bombers. Together, they swing giant searchlights that light the way for anti-aircraft gunners on the ground.

It’s autumn when the major to whom she’s been assigned stalls at her desk on the way to his own office.

“Do you speak French, Miss Carter?” he asks brusquely.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well enough?”

“I think so, sir. My mother came from Amiens.”

The major looms over her. He cuts a distinctive figure, broad shouldered and straight backed despite the paunch and greying hair that signify his advancing age. He had been only twenty years old during the Great War, and, Peggy thinks, he must have been a fine specimen then. The Battle of the Somme had cost him an eye – now covered by a black cloth patch – and he had spent the relatively peaceful years between wars advancing through the ranks from the comfort of his office. He looks down at her for a long moment.

“Was your father a Frenchman as well?”

“No, sir,” Peggy swallows, “He was English. The Boche gassed him before I could meet him.”

The major nods and frowns. “Rotten luck.”

“Yes, sir.” Peggy looks away, discomfited by the personal turn the conversation has taken. 

“If I were to recommend you for another assignment, would you accept?”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

The offer sends a thrill down Peggy’s spine, along with a pang of uncertainty. 

“Don’t look so glum, Miss Carter, it isn’t that you aren’t a good typist. It’s only that I think you’re made of rather sterner stuff than these other ladies, don’t you agree?”

Her brow furrows. “It’s ladies who are needed, then?”

“Aren’t they always?” The major gives her a sly look and smiles. “Musn’t say any more about it. Mum’s the word, my girl.”

\--

It’s past dark by the time Peggy pushes herself away from her desk, wraps her coat around her shoulders, and makes her way out of the building. The cool October air pinches her cheeks. The denizens of London have drawn their blackout curtains, the streetlamps have been extinguished, and Peggy only has moon and starlight to guide her through the city to the Hertford Arms.

Inside, the pub is as loud, warm and bright as the outside world was cold, silent and gloomy. In these after-dark hours when Londoners are told to fear for their lives, the city’s public houses pulse with an anxious kind of energy. Peggy soaks in the loud music and raucous voices as her gaze sweeps across the room, searching.

Vera waves at her from across the crowd. In a sea of olive drab, her bright blue uniform seems positively cheery. Peggy smiles and pushes her way towards the bar. 

“Cor, you look tired,” Vera tells her; her posh accent jars against the vernacular slang she’s picked up since joining the WAAF. 

Peggy runs a hand over her sagging curls. “Do I?”

Vera frowns. She looks impeccable, as always – her honey-colored hair is set and styled, her lips and cheeks are rouged to perfection. In the years Peggy has known her, she has never been anything other than perfect.

“We’ll get a drink in you, right?” She curves her body over the bar and gestures to the barkeep, “That ought to straighten things out.”

“I think I’ve got something exciting coming my way,” Peggy shouts over the surrounding din. She can’t help but smile a little. “Some kind of assignment. Secret, of course. I’m not to tell anyone about it.”

“Well done, there,” Vera laughs, and Peggy feels a blush rise to her cheeks. A tall glass of cold, amber beer is placed on the bar before her and she takes a long drink. “Don’t worry, darling,” Vera leans forward and whispers in Peggy’s ear, “all your secrets are safe with me.”

She’s close enough that Peggy can smell her perfume. Close enough that a lock of Vera’s soft hair brushes against the curve of Peggy’s ear. For a long, slow moment, Peggy feels stunned, the way Vera always makes her feel – heartsick and confused, warm and helpless. 

Time goes slow, slow, with Vera next to her and her hand wrapped around a cold glass of ale. And then, in the next moment, a German incendiary bomb hits; the room fills with smoke and fire, and what was once Vera becomes just another limp, mangled corpse half-buried under an immovable pile of wreckage. 

(Peggy lives a great many more years, but never finds an answer to why she survived that night – climbing out of the rubble covered in soot and blood – or why the people who seem to be the best of us, and the dearest to her, are forced to die.)


End file.
